It's a case of outrageous coverage of an outrage. The Washington Post features two articles today on al Qaeda's bomb attacks in Jordan that killed 59 people. Under the more prominent headline, 'The Best Day Became the Worst', Jonathan Finer tells a story of tragedy and grief,
AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 10 -- The day after his wedding, Ashraf Daas helped carry the bodies of his father and 13 other relatives through the ramshackle Sahab Cemetery east of downtown.
The other story reports that Zarqawi claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The incidents marked the first time that al Qaeda in Iraq, which has asserted responsibility for many of the most spectacular attacks in Iraq's violent insurgency, has conducted a successful attack in another country.
The story concludes,
"We are witnessing that the Zarqawi network is becoming more active," August Hanning, the chief of Germany's foreign intelligence service, said Thursday at a conference in Berlin. "We see a growing threat for Europe. Therefore we are not surprised by an attack by the Zarqawi network. We expect more attacks to come."
The message from the Washington Post is clear. The war on terror is not going well. Al Qaeda is successfully expanding their operation. There's a sense of resignation, and the unspoken message is that the Administration handling of the War on Terror has been a disaster. Now compare Washington Post coverage to these two other stories. For quite a different take we visit Washington Times, Jordanians revile Zarqawi.
AMMAN, Jordan -- Thousands of Jordanians rallied in the capital and other cities, shouting "Burn in hell, Abu Musab Zarqawi" a day after three deadly hotel bombings that killed at least 59 persons. Officials suspected Iraqi involvement in the attacks, which were claimed by al Qaeda's Iraq branch.
Protesters in Jordan and elsewhere in the Arab world denounced the Jordanian-born leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Zarqawi.
Jordanian security forces arrested a group of Iraqis for questioning, and officials said one of the bombers spoke Iraqi-accented Arabic before he exploded his suicide belt in the Grand Hyatt Hotel.
The main demonstration in Amman lasted for more than an hour. But honking vehicles, decorated with Jordanian flags and posters of King Abdullah II, cruised Amman's streets until late in the night, as passengers chanted, "Death to Zarqawi, the villain and the traitor" and anti-terrorism slogans.
About 50 people, including Jordanian children holding tiny flags, placed candles on a makeshift sand memorial in the driveway of the Hyatt.
King Abdullah, a strong U.S. ally, vowed in a nationally televised address to "pursue those criminals and those behind them, and we will get to them wherever they are."
Zarqawi won no friends with this latest atrocity. According to the Times he even attempted to explain himself to the Jordanians and to the rest of the Arab world.
But later yesterday, in an apparent response to the protests, Zarqawi's group took the rare step of trying "to explain for Muslims part of the reason the holy warriors targeted these dens."
"Let all know that we have struck only after becoming confident that they are centers for launching war on Islam and supporting the Crusaders' presence in Iraq and the Arab peninsula and the presence of the Jews on the land of Palestine," al Qaeda in Iraq said in an Internet statement, the authenticity of which could not be verified.
There is the sense that expanded attacks by al Qaeda is hastening the turn in Arab public opinion against the terrorists. Recall that there were celebrations in certain Mideast quarters when the the World Trade Center Collapsed. There's been a different reaction to this attack. It happened in their neck of the woods, and the Arabs are finding they don't like it much. Reinforcing that viewpoint that is this story from Strategy Page, Find Foot, Take Aim, Fire.
November 11, 2005: Al Qaeda took credit for a triple suicide bombing in Jordan on November 9th. While the targets were three hotels with Western names (Radisson, Hyatt and Days Inn), nearly all the victims (60 dead) were Arabs, mostly Jordanian. Two senior members of the Palestinian Authority died as well. The most casualties were at a wedding reception, where the fathers of the bride and groom were among the dead. This attacks caused enormous popular anger against al Qaeda, and did hardly any damage to Westerners.
By way of explanation Strategy Page concludes,
One explanation for this counter-productive behavior can be found in the quality of al Qaeda personnel. It is low, with most members having few skills and little training. While the media concentrates on the few successes al Qaeda has, the majority of the terror groups operations are sloppy, ineffective and counterproductive. One should be thankful for incompetent terrorists, although in this case that's only natural. Al Qaeda's goals and methods are based on fantasy and self-delusion. Many of those who join al Qaeda have bought into the delusions, and are not terribly rational themselves. Thus al Qaeda's strategy is, currently, to kill at every opportunity, without paying attention to who the victims, or consequences, are. Al Qaeda gunmen are not noted for their accuracy, except when the target is their own foot. Let's hope they never change.
The War on Terror is ongoing and dangerous, but we're winning. We're winning because we've been successful at killing terrorists in Iraq, and now al Qaeda is giving us more allies. Who knows maybe even France will be on our side again someday.
Everyone I've spoken with who has spent any time in the region says the support for the terrorists is minimal and the vocal support of the U.S. is continuing to grow. Of course, we'll see little of that talk in most media.
Posted by: Ol' BC | November 12, 2005 at 11:56 AM
Sad to say, I think you're right. We'll see little of that in the media. By all appearances, the goal of highest importance to the media is a return to the liberal agenda. Everything else is subordinate. And I do mean everything.
Posted by: Tom Bowler | November 12, 2005 at 05:13 PM